


i wanna be bigger than life

by helenecixous



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, idk man i lov melissa mccarthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: You shower, slowly, revelling in this new side to everything as you work conditioner into your hair, and you think about how you love her. You love her with a gentleness that’s totally new to you, and you realise that you love the idea of a life with her - of baking in the morning and long showers and late nights with Chinese takeout - a life where cleaning the kitchen after you use it seems simple and routine.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elainebarrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/gifts).



You remember the first time you told Abby you love her. You’d been covered in slime and giggling uncontrollably, high on the adrenaline and caffeine and dangerously sleep deprived, and the thing had just exploded all over you. You remember staggering under the weight of what had felt like tonnes and tonnes of metal over your shoulders, and then you’d tripped over your feet and stumbled, and she’d been there, of course - she’s always there - and she’d caught you, wrapped her arm tightly around you, and said something about you being a health and safety hazard unto yourself, but you could tell by her tone that she had been just as excited by the whole thing as you were. You’d wound your arms around her and she’d pulled a face as you’d placed a messy and exaggerated kiss on her cheek, sighed, and swayed on your feet.

“That was _awesome,_ ” you’d sang, throwing your head back and forcing her to tighten her grip on you as she’d tried to maneuver you into the car without hurting you. “I fuckin’ love you, y’know?”

From there your memories get hazy, but you half remember all but throwing all four of your gangly limbs into the hearse and arranging yourself into a barely legal travelling position and looking up at her, and she’d been laughing as she told you to try and not mess up the upholstery. You’d given her a lazy, uncoordinated two fingered salute, and then you were home, and you remember thinking _home, home, this is home and they are home and Abby is home and this is my home,_ and Patty had appeared to help you out of your spoiled clothes, and you vaguely remember them both making you shower, and when you came out of the bathroom clean and warm and sleepier than ever, they’d both been standing outside the door, waiting to hear you fall or call for help, and the words are right there on your lips again as they help you into bed; _I love you so much, you guys are my family and I love you so much thank you for giving me something to belong to and for caring and for showing me how to care and how to love because fuck I love you I love you I love you and for the first time in my life I love_ me. Of course you’d fallen asleep way before any of this made it to the surface, and when you’d woken up two days later you’d been greeted by a still steaming cup of tea sitting on your bedside. It was in one of Abby’s mugs, and you’d wondered whether she’d been making tea for you this entire time, just in case you’d woken earlier.

 

You’re thinking about this now, now, even though you’ve been staunchly refusing to think about that day, that word vomit that’s caused you endless anxiety, because Abby and Patty and Erin are sitting in front of you, each of them holding handfuls of bobby pins. They’re ‘staging an intervention’, although all three of them are nudging each other and snickering like children. Abby has launched into a tirade of receipts, and she’s telling you exactly how long it took her and Patty to locate and remove all eighteen of the bobby pins in your hair ‘that day Jeremy exploded over you’, and you’re slouched in your chair, watching her talk with amusement and arrogance in equal parts, fixing her with that half interested smirk you’d perfected long before you met her. Maybe she’s forgotten or didn’t hear what you said to her, and you’re relieved for the exact amount of time it takes you to realise that she’s not exactly going to be like ‘that day you were delirious and you told me you love me’.

You laugh, and shrug in what you hope are the right interludes, but you’re not thinking about bobby pins anymore, because Abby Yates isn’t the first woman you’ve fallen for. Apparently today is a day for addressing thoughts you’d been determined to push away, because before you can even tell yourself not to, you’re thinking about Rebecca Gorin again for the first time in what feels like months.

She had been your mentor, the first person to truly believe in you and encourage you to be yourself. She’d coaxed you out from your self made restraints, and she'd been kind to you, so you had, predictably, fallen in love with the way her fingers moved deftly and carefully and the way she was never able to tame all of her hair, you'd fallen in love with the scent of her, her very _essence,_ the way she looked at you like you were the only person in the world. You'd fallen for the way she'd work you until you fell asleep at your desk and then for the way she would always wake you up with mostly monosyllabic words and she'd drag you to her car and make sure you got home safely.

“Are you guys, like, done?” you drawl, coming to the sudden realisation that they’d stopped talking and were waiting for you to reply. The kind of realisation that, had you been in a badly made movie, would’ve sounded like the screech of tyres and a crash and maybe an explosion. The kind that always ends with miscellaneous car alarms blaring and a cat squalling indignantly. “Because I’m guessin’ y’all don’t really want to be dealing with this,” you gesture to your head with both index fingers, “bein’ set free. Be careful what you wish for, Yates, baby. That’s how _fires_ start.” You waggle your eyebrows at her, and you don’t miss the way she scoffs and looks away, looking secretly pleased.

“You’re messed up,” Patty says, and there’s admiration in her voice and in her smile. “You’re totally wrecked, y’know that, girl? Totally.”

“I’m the chick who pimps up hearses, Patty,” you remind her, leaning back in the chair and picking at your teeth with a screw you’d found in your pocket. “What else d’you expect, huh? There ain’t nothin’ demure waiting to jump outta me, I promise.”

“Well thank God for that,” Erin says, all brisk and businesslike as usual. She smiles to let you know that she’s only half exasperated with you, and leans forward to hand you your hairpins back before she rushes off to make a phonecall, or whatever it is she does in her spare time.

Patty stands up as well, says something about it being her cousin’s birthday party before she leaves, and it takes you a second to realise that you’re alone with Abby, and she’s looking at you with an expression you can’t quite read.

You shift, pocket the pins and pull out your phone. You’ve always been a nervous fidgeter; a tic that had been somewhat exacerbated by working under Gorin, and apparently it’s just something that happens more and more when you’re crushing on your coworker and best friend.

“Are you _tweeting?”_ she asks, leaning forward with that strange half smile. “Holtz.”

“Yup. Hashtag ghostbusters hashtag forever.” You look up and meet her eyes, and you wonder when you’d gone from being able to wrap yourself around her with no hesitations to being pretty much unable even to look at her without feeling like you’ve not slept for weeks on end.

“Okay, we need to get you a hobby,” she says, standing and shaking her head. “Besides dealing with ghosts and protons and inventing various other probably dangerous and deadly weaponry.”

“For the cause,” you say, and she laughs, her hand lingering on your shoulder for a second as she passes.

“For the cause,” she calls back over her shoulder, and you’re left grinning near uncontrollably to yourself and your phone.

 

Eventually you forget that you told her that thing, and you stop studiously examining her every action and look and smile in your direction for any hint of what she might remember, (or worse, what she might _not_ remember?). You’re able to focus on work a little better, and you slip back into your habits of a diet consisting of pringles and pizza, and functioning mainly on naps wherever you can grab them.

Abby’s woken you up from impromptu naps no fewer than four times in the past fortnight - the last had been the most memorable, you’d fallen asleep with your face inches away from a lit bunsen burner, and she’d been so panicked as she jerked you awake that she’d almost shoved you into the flame, and your laughing served only to confuse her more. She just turned off the gas and muttered about how you’re always nine tenths delirious, and if you’re not putting yourself and your surroundings in perilous danger, are you even awake?

But there’s one thing that happens that is, despite all appearances, actually not your fault at all. It’s three in the morning and you’re stumbling home with some pretty brown eyed girl you’d picked up at the bar you frequent, and for a second you think you’ve hit some new levels of drunk and tired, that your apartment hasn’t _actually_ flooded, because it’s New York, you don’t live in a shitty area, and real people’s apartments don’t really flood at three in the morning when you’re about to sleep with someone pretty. Do they?

The next hour is a blur of blue lights and sirens and men in uniform telling you there’s nothing they can do and is there somewhere you can stay for a couple of nights? Somewhere along the way the girl had disappeared, and you’re sitting on the curb when you remember that you’ve got a mobile, and you call the first person who’s on your speed dial.

 

“Flooded?” She’s eighty percent sleepy and twenty percent amused as she drives you back to hers.

You’ve folded yourself into the passenger’s seat, one foot propped up on the dash and the other tucked firmly beneath you. “Do you realise how sobering that is?” you ask, turning to look at her and rubbing your eyes. “Tonight was gonna be _so good.”_

“Big plans?” Abby asks, grinning.

“Booze and girls and… and booze. And girls.”

“Sounds like fun. Are you sure you want to stay at mine? I mean you’re welcome to, but ‘fun’ at my place tends to mean soup from the Chinese and a good documentary.” You know she’s joking, that she wouldn’t have you stay anywhere else, and you can feel the goofy grin that’s on your face as you rest your cheek against the cold window.

“Thanks for comin’ to get me,” you mumble through a yawn. “I can’t believe this all worked out so well.”

You think she says something about suspecting that you’d planned this whole thing, and something about just wanting an excuse to come over, but you’re drifting in and out of consciousness so quickly it’s like somebody with a Holtz Remote is just switching you on and off and on again.

 

When you wake up you’re in a bed you don’t recognise, and there’s a mug of tea next to you. It takes you a few seconds to remember where you are, and when you do you’re not really able to control nor define the thing your stomach does. You wonder whether you’re in her spare room - does she _have_ a spare room? - and when you clamber from bed you realise how cold it is, and that your jacket isn’t anywhere to be seen. So you pick up the nearest thing to you, realise with a small jolt that it’s one of Abby’s many, many cardigans, and pull it over your shoulders as you shuffle into the hallway.

“Abby?” you call, your voice rough at the edges with sleep. “Oh _Abby_ , where are you?” you adopt a singsong tone, peering around the doorframe before you head to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee and the faint cussing that’s happening there.

“You’re up!” she exclaims, turning around and wielding a rolling pin, and you clear your throat.

“Yeah, you’ve - uh, you’ve got a little something-” you gesture to your nose, and she just stares at you blankly so you move towards her and wipe the bridge of her nose with one fingertip. “Flour?”

You do a slow turn and you see that there’s flour, actually, everywhere. It’s on every surface - a fine white dusting that’s probably going to linger for weeks.

“These are some… unconventional morning activities, Yates. Where is my jacket, by the way? I hope you didn’t sacrifice it to the pastry gods.”

She rolls her eyes and turns back to the counter as you perch next to the oven and stick your finger into whatever batter it is she’s making before she slaps the back of your hand, feigning annoyance.

“Your jacket’s in the wash,” she says. “It was gross. And you can stop _poking_ things and start making yourself useful.”

“Yes ma’am,” you mutter, one eyebrow raised. “Just say the word.”

She points to the oven door and tells you to open it, check the temperature, and then stick the mix into it, and it takes all of twenty minutes for you to admit that you might know everything about physics and the supernatural and making bad decisions, but you know absolutely nothing about a habit as domestic as baking. It’s like the basic skills of life had surpassed you - cooking, cleaning, an inclination towards health and safety, for example - to make room for your excess of charm and genius. So to watch her potter about her kitchen, even though it does resemble a disaster scene quite closely, is new to you. And you’d be lying if you said the pink in your cheeks was only down to the heat from the oven.

 

She makes a variety of baked goods, and claims that she couldn’t have done it without you, and as they’re cooling on their trays she sends you off to shower as she cleans up.

You shower, slowly, revelling in this new side to everything as you work conditioner into your hair, and you think about how you love her. You love her with a gentleness that’s totally new to you, and you realise that you love the idea of a life with her - of baking in the morning and long showers and late nights with Chinese takeout - a life where cleaning the kitchen after you use it seems simple and routine.

When you get out of the shower and get dressed, you pull her cardi back on and wrap it around yourself, and the goosebumps along your shoulders and neck are not at all because you’re cold.

She’s curled up on the sofa, a book in her lap, and she looks up as you come in. “Do you need anything else from yours?” she asks. “We can go over today and see if we can salvage anything. Lucky it’s been slow at work, hm?”

You nod distractedly, indecisive. Silence falls for a few seconds past comfortable, and before she can speak again and before you change your mind, you cross the room and you’ve got your fingers beneath her chin, and you’re tilting her head up to face you, and there’s a second spent watching each other, her eyes wide and her lips turned into a small smile. It’s Abby who closes the space between you, threading her fingers through your damp hair as she kisses you gently, and you think that you might be having a heart attack. You kiss her back, just as slowly, and you think it surprises her. You move only slightly, so you can lower yourself to the sofa and sit next to her, and her cardi has slipped off of one shoulder as you move closer to her, and then you’re interrupted by the sudden vibrations from her phone.

She breaks away from you reluctantly, and picks it up, reads the text and then turns back to you.

“Wanna go bust some ghosts?” she asks, and you shake your head, already moving back towards her, and she laughs against your lips as she opens her arms and lets you.

**Author's Note:**

> this is for alex because i lov her
> 
> title from eyes shut - years & years


End file.
